The Davidson men’s basketball team split a pair of road games against the Southern Conference North Division leaders last week, defeating Western Carolina 75-72 on Saturday night after suffering a 66-56 defeat at the hands of Appalachian State on Thursday.
Harouna Mutombo nailed a three-pointer with 4:07 remaining to knot the WCU game at 70. Both teams missed several chances to gain the lead over the next three minutes before the Wildcats finally did. Davidson hauled in three offensive rebounds in one possession, culminating in Jake Cohen’s ’13 put-back with 1:05 left for a 72-70 advantage.
After the Catamounts missed three shots on offense, Brendan McKillop ’11 went to the foul line for a one-and-one opportunity. He missed the first shot, but Ben Allison ’12 rebounded the miss and found JP Kuhlman ’13, who canned two foul shots with 17 seconds on the clock.
After Mutombo converted a lay-up with nine seconds left, the Catamounts were forced to foul Cohen, who made one out of two from the charity stripe to produce the game’s final margin. Jake Robinson missed a contested three-pointer as time expired.
The Catamounts started quickly against the Wildcats, grabbing a 32-24 lead by shooting 5-7 from beyond the three-point arc in the opening frame. A three from Nik Cochran ’13 began an 8-0 run for the Wildcats that tied the game with 3:48 to go before halftime.
Western Carolina carried a 40-37 edge into the locker room, a lead they briefly increased to seven before Davidson rallied to tie the game at 50 with five minutes gone in the second half.
Cohen and Cochran scored 14 points apiece to pace the Wildcats. Allison produced 12 points and seven rebounds off the bench, while Kuhlman (11 points) and Steve Rossiter ’10 (10 points) joined them in double figures. McKillop struggled from the floor (0-6), but finished with nine assists and no turnovers from the point guard position.
Davidson shot 46.4% (26-56) from the floor, and 72.7% (16-22) from the foul line. They held the Catamounts to 34.4% (11-32) from the field in the second half to offset Western’s 44.4% (8-18) from three-point range. The Wildcats also out-rebounded the Catamounts 38-31.
Mutombo led Western Carolina with 15 points, eight rebounds and four assists. Brandon Giles added 13 points, and Robinson finished with 11.
The victory came two days after Donald Sims and the Mountaineers completed a regular season sweep of Davidson by winning 66-56 at the Holmes Center.
Sims, who scored 44 points in the first meeting between the two squads, hit for 25 this time, including 19 in the second half as Appalachian pulled away.
Bryant Barr ’10 led Davidson with 15 points on 5-7 shooting from three-point range. Twelve of those points came in the first half as the Wildcats built a 30-28 edge heading into the intermission.
Davidson could not keep up with the Mountaineers in the second half, however, as the Mountaineers shot 60.9% from the floor (including 4-4 from beyond the arc) and pulled away.
Consecutive triples by Sims gave the Mountaineers a 47-40 lead with 10 minutes to play. Appalachian followed that with a 9-2 run that produced a 58-49 lead with 5:07 to play. Barr’s final basket of the game (and only one in the second half) made the score 62-56 with 1:42 left, but Sims scored the final four points of the game to account for the game’s final margin.
Joining Barr in double figures were Cohen and Will Archambault ’10 with 10 points each. Archambault hit a foul shot five minutes into the game that made him the 38th player in Wildcat history to record 1,000 points.
Davidson shot a paltry 32.8 percent (20-61) from the floor for the game, and fared even worse (28.1 percent) from three-point range. The Mountaineers hit at a 47.9 percent clip, including 6-9 from beyond the arc. They also pounded the Wildcats on the glass, out-rebounding Davidson 41-28.
Kellen Brand and Marcus Wright each scored ten points to supplement Sims’ efforts. Josh Hunter led the rebounding charge for Appalachian by hauling in 10 boards.
Barr joined the 700-point club against Western Carolina in the victory that moved Davidson over .500 overall (13-12) and to 8-5 in the conference. The victory also vaulted Davidson into fourth place in the conference. The Wildcats face a crucial test on Wednesday at 7 p.m. when the Wofford Terriers come to town. The Wildcats need a victory to give themselves a realistic chance of finishing in the top two of the South Division and earning a first-round bye in the conference tournament. Davidson will follow the showdown with the Terriers with a Saturday home game against the Furman Paladins at 2 p.m.
’Cats salvage road split with North Division leaders
Published: Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Updated: Wednesday, February 17, 2010
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